


A Thousand Times Asleep

by Pastel_Teacups



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Post-Children of the Earth, sort of a fix-it but not really?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 06:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2458106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastel_Teacups/pseuds/Pastel_Teacups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ianto's death, Jack still sees him in death. Needless to say, he dies more often than strictly necesarry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Times Asleep

Jack doesn’t realize it, at first. 

After Torchwood, nothing seems permanent to him. Not the people in his bed, not the worlds he visited, nothing. 

Except himself. 

He goes to and from worlds, universes, visiting everywhere but Earth. Past, present, or future, it doesn't matter. Anything could remind him of something he lost. 

Or someone. 

Everywhere he goes has a coffee shop, though, and he can’t so much as pass them on the street without feeling a large hole in his chest. 

Ianto’s voice fills his dreams when he sleeps, so he stops altogether. 

The first time he dies off of Earth is when it happens. 

It’s the darkness, as it always is, but Ianto is there. Standing there, as if he’d always been. As if he belongs. 

“Ianto,” Jack says, and it’s more of a strangled half-breath than anything else. 

The Welsh turns to him and then they’re close, their noses nearly touching. “We don’t have much time, I think.” 

Jack knows that he’s right. He’s never felt more tired of being immortal. “No, I don’t think we do.” 

Ianto reaches out to touch his face, to trace his jaw with delicate fingers. Jack’s heart isn’t beating. He shouldn’t feel it plummet. 

“I’ll time it the next time ‘round.” Ianto promises in a whisper, and Jack _aches._

“Will you be here next time?” He isn’t sure he wants to hear the answer, but he asks the question anyways. 

Ianto smiles, sadly. “Of course. I’ve gotta make sure you don’t forget me somehow. This seems like a good way to go about it." 

Jack wants to smile, but he’s being pulled away. He reaches out for Ianto, to hold on to him, but he’s too far away. His hands grasp at nothing. 

When he wakes up, his cheeks are wet with tears. 

\----

It goes like that, every time. 

Two days later when Jack experimentally hangs himself Ianto’s there, and Jack hears the _click_ of a stopwatch before he even opens his eyes. 

“That was fast,” Ianto comments. When Jack turns his head and _sees_ him, he’s in a suit, proper as ever. 

Jack doesn’t question the reality of it all. He doesn’t want to dwell on the possibility of this being a result of his own obsession. 

“Well, I had to make sure you’d still be here.” He says, and though his chest aches it’s nothing compared to the thrill he feels at seeing Ianto again. 

He shrugs, and the stopwatch in his hand ticks menacingly. “Not much else to do.” 

Jack only has to take two strides forward before they come together, their lips crashing together. He feels so real, pressed against him with all the wrong kinds of desperation. Jack pulls him closer, his hands clutching the fabric of Ianto’s shirt in some hopes that he would be some sort of anchor. 

It doesn’t work, and too soon Jack feels that familiar pull. 

Their lips part, and Jack opens his eyes to look at him one last time. 

Just before he wakes up, he hears the stopwatch’s final _click._

\----

He dies quite a bit more than strictly necessary, just to see Ianto again. 

He’s alerted on his third visit that their time is limited to just one minute and thirty seconds, judging by Ianto’s Afterlife Stopwatch. They’re not sure how accurate it is. It feels a lot shorter than one and a half minute, they both agree. 

Sometimes Ianto’s in pajamas, playing cards on the ground of the darkness or teaching himself to knit. Other times he’s in suits, and at these times Jack distinctly smells coffee. 

Sometimes Jack just holds Ianto for a minute and a half, trying to memorize his smell and feel so that he’ll want to die a little less next time. 

He wakes up cold, and can’t wait until he sees him again. 

\----

Slowly, inch by inch, Ianto becomes his everything. 

He wakes with a smile after he dies, and most people don’t bother to ask. They’re usually too busy being confused by his immortality. 

Ianto’s there, always. 

Some deaths, he confides in Jack, tells him about a piece of his life he previously kept hidden. 

He doesn’t speak to his parents. His father had hit him to “toughen him up" as a child and teen. His mother and sister stood by. 

He was the one to recruit Lisa into Torchwood 1, and claims it was love at first sight. Before this he worked as his father’s assistant taylor, and then managed a small coffee shop on his own. Though they hadn’t spoken since Ianto’s teens, he stills sent his suits to be tailored by his father. He payed full price. 

Some deaths they laugh until they cry, or cry until they laugh, because no matter how often they see each other they both know it won’t last, that Ianto will always be tantalizingly close but always far enough to know his place. Like he always does. 

Sometimes they kiss, or hold each other, trying anything to convince himself that they could be happy like this. 

It doesn’t often work. 

Some deaths Ianto isn't there at all, but those are few and far between, so Jack doesn't dwell on it. He doesn't ask Ianto where he went, and Ianto doesn't tell him.   
\----

“Jack?” 

“Yes, lovely?” And it’s one of those deaths, the ones where they smile until their cheeks hurt and try not to feel the pain in their chests. 

There’s a long pause, and Jack wonders what Ianto’s waiting for. 

He slips onto the ground with a sob, curling into himself and trying to forget that he’s dead, that he’s stuck in the darkness searching for Jack until he shows himself. 

He feels heavy, half-alive arms wrap tightly around his shoulders try to bring him back, try to force him into the realization that he isn’t alone. “Ianto.” It’s a whispered plea, a literal call into the dark as Jack tugs him closer. “It’s alright. We’re here, okay? The both of us. You and me, like always.” 

A sob rips through him, and he doesn’t have the means to respond. By the time he chokes out, “No, you’re not,” Jack is already gone. 

\----

It’s decades by the time Jack is finally allowed to die again, and he _aches_ for Ianto. 

He’s forced to survive long past his time, by wires and cat nurses, and one of the few things that slip past his lips now days is, “Ianto.” 

Even when the Doctor sees him, entirely unaware of who he _really_ is(He _is_ nothing more than a giant head now, after all) he only thinks of what's lying ahead for him. He’ll be with Ianto, forever this time. They’ve both been kept waiting far too long, Jack thinks. 

When the last breath escapes his lips and his eyes finally close, death feels different this time. Less like a welcome-back whisper and more like an about-time punch. 

He’s whole, when his eyes open again. His body’s back, and he’s in his-and Ianto’s-favorite coat. There’s only one thing missing. 

Ianto. 

Jack feels more than a little bit of pain in his chest, anxiety that Ianto had grown tired of waiting for him and wandered off into the darkness.

He has to be lost, is all. Ianto had taken a wrong turn in the darkness and now he needed Jack's help. 

He had to be real. Jack couldn't have been dreaming all those deaths. Could he?

He looks out into the darkness, looking for some vague Ianto-colored light. He doesn't find one. 

He sets off running, intent to find him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Comments + Kudos are always greatly appreciated, and I'd love to know what you thought of it! :)


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